What to do with a dog when your house is being shown

Just hours after we listed the house, we were excited to learn that there were multiple showing requests. This was great! Except, now I had to find somewhere Molly (our Golden Retriever) could go while strangers were examining our home.

As it happened, there were four showings on one day, so that meant that I couldn’t just hang out in the park for a little while.

Using the “Bring Fido” app, I located an inexpensive cafe that was close by and had outside seating. That day, we were able to stay there for an extended lunch. One time, it was raining very hard, so we scrambled to find a place to stay until our realtor let us stay at his office for a bit. Our alarm system let us know when the visitors had left, so we knew when it was safe to return home.

But waiting while the house was being shown was hard. I had hoped that having lots of tasks on my project list would keep me from thinking too much about actually being retired. So far, every day I woke up with an extensive to-do list. Not only do I love crossing items off, but the list gave me focus. But I couldn’t do any of them sitting on a park bench,

Within a week, we had six good offers! Each one was slightly different, but we selected the one that worked best for us and began the paperwork to sell. For health reasons, our buyers weren’t able to complete the sale. Back on the market we went. And back to the park and cafe Molly and I went. Soon, we received several good offers, chose one, and finally began to move forward.

Now we had a target closing date. Next on the task list: Figure out how to move our household furnishings 800 miles.